CONFIDENTIAL
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15
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10. FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT POST 97/GENERAL ASSURANCE FOR BN(0)s
Present Position
to
After a Legco delegation meeting with the British Home Secretary on 9 June, Legislative Councillor, Emily Lau wrote
ask him to confirm that the 1985/86 Baroness Young assurance [that 'if any British national was to come under severe pressure to leave Hong Kong, the British Government of the day would consider with particular sympathy their
the UK 1 applied to all
case for admission into
BDTCs/BN(0)s, not only to the ethnic minorities.
The Home
Secretary clarified that the 1985/86
assurance did not apply to Chinese BN(0)s. He referred
instead, and the Chief Secretary repeated in LegCo, to the
wider assurance of Sir Geoffrey Howe in 1989 that if,
against all expectations, the worst were to happen in Hong Kong after 1997, the special responsibility of the UK for the people of Hong Kong would be inescapable, and part of that responsibility would be a responsibility to mobilise
the widest possible international help.”
this
Many LegCo members were dissatisfied with
assurance, which is rather general and does not recognize
the special British obligation to BN(O)s.
In
the light of the Chinese Government's decision to
expel Han Dong-fang. Emily Lau moved a motion today (10
November}, calling on the British Government to secure a
firm undertaking from the Chinese Government on Hong Kong
people's freedom of movement and urging the British
Government
conform that if BN(0)s are expelled from Hong
Kong after 1997, they will be accepted for settlement in the
UK.
In preparing our reply to the motion, we have achieved a slightly more specific assurance from the British
Government that "if the situation was such that an
individual BN(0) were expelled, [it would] consider his or her position in the light of all the circumstances".
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